Low Code platform – sharing from our Full-Stack Developer

We all think about Low Code solution when businesses are lacking the resources to implement the necessary system and processes to transform while keeping the lights on. Let our Full Stack Developer Louis-Marie SOULARD share with you more about it.

As a Full Stack Developer, could you give us a brief definition of Low Code - one of the biggest tech trends recently?

Low code technology allows the user to build an application without deep technical knowledge. Instead of focusing on technical considerations, users can work on their business values.

For developers, it means simplification and abstraction of technical process, delivering concepts easy to understand for everyone thank to a well-chosen semantic. It also means generic components.

As developers, we use frameworks to build a faster application. We use generic concepts trusted by all developers all over the world. Low-code solution is like a framework, but for non-developer users. Concepts should be generic and all the business logic must be translated into simple models.

In the context of this big low-code/ no-code trend, is there any evolution in full-stack training for students nowadays?

Students first learn how to code. In real life, we learn how to code the minimum possible. More there is code, more there should be a test so more we should spend time, and finally more there are bugs.

And then, the solution is to build one tool, develop once and use it in several configurations.

The tech students, should they always have to know several programming languages?

Before programming languages, it is important to have a good algorithmic basis and to experiment them on low-level languages like C or Python - easy to learn and to understand. After that, besides good experiences with functional programming, it is necessary to have the theory about object programming and one or two languages like JAVA or C++.

Why we’d better choose a low code solution?

With low code solution, we develop features once and configure it for an infinity of use cases. For example, we have a form generator and form validation configuration that can be used for all kind of uses.

Do you have some pieces of advice to choose the best low-code platform?

It depends on your need and your budget. You have a lot of solutions in the market for data management, workflow, data analysis. Some of them are used for specific domain and technologies like Salesforce, g-suite, for IoT, or public cloud providers.

You’re working on Polaris OS - a low code development solution. Tell us more about it.

Polaris OS has been developed first for open repositories. It is also used for research project management but it can be used for all kind of metadata management use cases.

Our current client, INED (The National Institute for demographic studies) launched the platform ARCHined in 2019 dedicated to the scholarly outputs produced by their community of demographers. Read the full version of Polaris OS’s case study with Ined here.

Is there some special installation conditions in comparison with other repository solutions?

Polaris OS is open-source and released under MIT license so you can evaluate it, deploy it and use it even for commercial use for your institution without restriction. So it is totally free!

It also has some specific features for the research domain such as easy filling of your publications (auto-completion of metadata…), automatic reports (evaluations, bibliographies), a powerful bibliographic tool, centralization of the researcher publications, automatic push in other bases of publications...

How are the feedbacks for this data solution Polaris OS?

Today Polaris OS is deployed for Ined and under heavy test for Inserm, two important French research institutions. We hope it will be widely used in the scientific world.

Karin Sohler, Ined’s Open repository manager who’s in charge of contextualizing the offer shared as the feedback that Polaris OS offered a matched sustainable solution to their aim of setting up an open institutional literature repository, and therefore the compatibility with the already existing open-access standards and metadata models were the mandatory condition.